Thoughts About Reaching Family — Introduction

Thoughts About Reaching Family & Friends

A SERIES OF SEVEN ESSAYS EXPLORING THOSE CHALLENGES . . . WITH SEVEN SUGGESTED STEPS TO RISE TO THE OCCASION.

You might think Seven Essays is a bit much, but this topic is critical. The salvation of our family and friends pulls at our heart. For some of us, often in the past, when we’ve tried, the result at times was discord. We leave those interactions feel paralyzed, or worse. The ability to share faith with family and friends is the most frequently expressed concern that people bring to us at The League.

In these essays we will look at Seven Sequential Steps:

• Step One: Have we earned the “right to be heard”?
  Step One asks us to ponder how our family and friends might “hear Christians”, and then suggests we need to distinguish ourselves, in order that our voice might be heard.

• Step Two: Are we and our family and friends both aiming at the same goal?
  Step Two invites us to consider the aims of our family and friends, how their lifegoals may be radically different than ours, and how that understanding can inform our approach.

• Step Three: How do we “show up” in their world?
  Step three offers’ thoughts around the reality that how we live may be very different than how our family and friends live, with thoughts about how to embrace them without losing ourselves.

• Step Four: We all want to belong.
  Step four examines the human need “to belong” as compared to our desire that our family and friends “believe” and offers a model that addresses both.

• Step Five: Living a life of love for our family and friends: it means playing the long game?
  Step five is meant to ask us to not only check our motives, but to think about the implications of our motive. If we say we want our family and friends to know Jesus because we love them, then have we thought through the biblical implication of that motive.

• Step Six: Jesus’ family did not believe him…why should your family believe you?
  Step six looks at the deep reality that even our Lord’s family at first struggled accepting him as Messiah. We know that ultimately, they embraced him. It is important for us to not “lose heart”. With family and friends, it takes time.
• Step Seven: Putting it all together – with Hope.
  Step Seven works to show how all these ideas sum together that communicates genuine love. But Step Seven doesn’t stop there. We look at the Biblical reality that it is rare when one person does 100% of the leading another person to Jesus.

So, let’s get started with Essay One.